


no one gets out of here alive

by heartofwinterfell



Category: Dead Poets Society (1989)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Bar/Pub, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Getting Together, M/M, author is binge watching cheers, excessive use of billy joel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-06
Updated: 2020-05-06
Packaged: 2021-03-01 18:34:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,029
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23811649
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heartofwinterfell/pseuds/heartofwinterfell
Summary: Neil and Pitts own the bar, Charlie drinks the bar, Knox consistently gets stood up at the bar, and a new regular changes nothing and everything.[also known as, selected scenes from the dead poets pub]
Relationships: Charlie Dalton/Knox Overstreet, Todd Anderson/Neil Perry
Comments: 12
Kudos: 156





	no one gets out of here alive

**Author's Note:**

> me to me: you can write a 1.5-3k fic with littles snippets of bar life. Not everything has to be over 8k and totally without chill.  
> (a huge word count later)  
> me to me: i am totally without chill.

“I don’t know how you did it, Pittsy, but congratulations, you somehow made a bar sadder.” Charlie downed the last dredges of his beer and slid the pint glass halfway across the bar. It knocked against a bowl of chips that, were it not for Neil knowing Charlie’s aim so well, would have gone flying to the floor. Neil handed the bowl off to Ginny to bring to safety at a table far away and began filling Charlie’s glass again.

“I think it’s nice,” Neil said, passing the full pint back down to Charlie. “It’s like a singles night, but -”

“Without any promise of sex?”

“It wouldn’t be from lack of trying on your end,” Ginny said as she passed behind Charlie. “Table 7 wants another round of dirty martinis.”

“See!” Pitts said as he began searching for olives. “It’s working!”

Charlie glanced over his shoulder. At a table stuffed into the corner, two women were chatting over empty martini glasses, one woman twirling her leftover toothpick like a miniature baton. Their conversation looked pleasant enough, but Charlie had to wonder what had derailed so horribly in their lives that they wound up at a Find A Friend social on a Tuesday night in a bar that served pretty shitty martinis when Pitts wasn’t the one making them. But, as he turned back to polish off another quarter of his second or third beer, Charlie realized that not participating in the event didn’t mean he wasn’t at the bar, too.

“They’re sad, it’s sad, I’m sad, we’re all sad.”

“That’s the spirit, Charlie,” Neil said with his sunshine smile and, just like that, the half of the bar that hadn’t already fallen madly in love with the bartender were crowding around for a second round.

“It’s sickening,” Ginny, leaning against the bar next to him, wrinkled her nose at the gaggle of girls ordering boring old vodka and cranberries while batting their eyelashes at Neil.

“It’s Neil.” Charlie polished off his beer and wondered if he should be heading home. It was still early - there were several nights a week he stayed until closing time - but it was also a Tuesday and he had another new job that his father screamed at him until he was close to an aneurysm about not losing.

At the moment he stood to go, his shoulder collided with a body making a beeline for the bar. The body was holding a full drink and half the contents crested over the lip of the glass and crashed onto the floor. “God damnit, Charlie,” Ginny said with a long groan. She already had her rag out, pushing Charlie back down into his seat as she moved toward the mess.

“I am so sorry. Really -” The guy Charlie knocked into was apologizing like he had kick started the end of the world.

“No need to apologize, sweetheart. It was that idiot’s fault.” Ginny waved her wet rag in Charlie’s direction.

Charlie wasn’t typically in the business of admitting Ginny’s right, but the man’s face looked like an overripe tomato and he didn’t need another lecture from Neil or Pitts about scaring people away from the bar. Clapping a hand on the man’s shoulder - the kid all but leapt out of his skin at the contact - Charlie gestured to his half-empty glass. “C’mon, let me buy you another. What were you drinking?”

“Oh.” The guy glanced down at the glass like he had never seen beer before. “I’m not really sure, actually. I was doing the social night? And my card read Stella Artois, I think?”

“Oh fuck you, Pitts!” Charlie whipped around, eyes scouring for the man in question. He got sun shining Neil instead.

“Actually, that was my idea.” Neil already had two full glasses of Stella waiting for them. “Make some friends, Charlie.”

The guy’s fingers brushed against Neil’s when he took the glass. Charlie practically clamped his whole hand around Neil’s while he grabbed at his drink, but that could not be the cause of the dusty rose blush blooming on Neil’s cheeks or the way he flexed his right hand before going for the seltzer spout.

 _Huh_ , Charlie thought just before clapping the new guy on the back for a second time. “What’s your name again?”

“I hadn’t -” He had not been paying attention to Charlie, his eyes somewhere unfixed further down the bar. “Todd. Todd Anderson.”

“Charlie Dalton.” Charlie knocked the rim of his glass against Todd’s. “You should come out here more often.”

…

It was an unsolvable mystery, how two twenty-six year olds came to own a whole bar. Even located in the cold top half of Vermont, the bar’s sat in the middle of a college city where most of the population believed the only way to stave off frostbite was drinking half a handle of vodka a night. Everyone agreed this was prime real estate owned by two kids playing restaurant, one of whom is grinding through medical school. Who let it happen?

Some say an old man croaked at the stroke of midnight, alone in his house deep in the woods, and when he was finally found, they dug up a will that listed Gerard Pitts as the last surviving heir of the cabin and a run down bar on St. Paul Street.

Others say the last owner disappeared under suspicious circumstances just as this character Gerard Pitts rolled into town.

People not so interested in tall tales assumed the Pitts family owned property and no one but the youngest son cared enough to run the place. He dragged a friend along for the ride and that friend tended bar with a textbook open behind the counter.

No one ever confirmed anything around here, no matter how many times a night a half drunk business man looked Pitts up and down and asked, “How does a kid like you get a place like this?”

Charlie knew bits and pieces of the truth. He knew Pitts did own the bar outright, but he didn’t give a damn if it was because a wealthy relative died, or his parents agreed to it just to shuffle him off to Vermont and out of their lives, or he killed someone and stole a land deed. He also knew Neil only agreed to attend medical school if his dad let him sink five thousand dollars into renovations, giving Neil his small stake in the bar. None of that would make a very interesting story, so Charlie stoked the flames of rumor instead.

Consider it all serendipitous. Most of Burlington did.

…

“He’s so depressing.”

Todd followed Charlie’s line of vision to a booth tucked into a corner by the window. At the booth sat a young man about their age with similar sandy blonde hair, a long face, and a very hunched over stance. He looked familiar.

“What is this, third week in a row he’s gotten stood up?”

That had to be why.

“I think we’re going on four,” Neil said as he put the finishing touches on three margaritas with sugar rims. The girl who ordered them for her table had lingered at the other end of the bar, twirling a blonde curl between her fingers. Her eyes never left Neil and Todd felt a pinprick to his heart each time she smiled at him.

“I have never seen something so pitiful.”

“You know sound does carry pretty well in here, Charlie,” Ginny said, setting down her tray of empty glasses beside Todd with a friendly bump against his shoulder.

“I don’t care,” Charlie said. It took less than a week for Todd to observe Charlie didn’t care about much in general, but cared about absolutely nothing two beers deep. “I _want_ him to hear that it’s depressing.” Swiveling on his stool, he turned fully toward the window. “You sir are sad!”

The man’s drooping head tilted up and he locked eyes with Charlie.

“Seriously, Charlie?” Neil had buried his face in his forearms.

Instead of ignoring Charlie or leaving though, the young man called back, “You think I don’t know that?”

“See?” Charlie said, looking pointedly at Neil. “I’m not telling him anything he doesn’t already know.”

“You’re humanitarian of the year,” Neil deadpanned, causing Todd to snort into his drink. Though Todd knew it wouldn’t help the reddening, he rubbed at his cheeks anyway and tried to avoid the confused look Neil was surely giving him.

“Unbelievable,” Ginny muttered under her breath. When Todd glanced over at her, he saw her shaking her head at Neil and then Todd, but when they locked eyes, Ginny quickly gathered up her tray and walked toward a table that had not been calling for her.

Maybe she was making room for the man who got stood up. He took the spot Ginny vacated, not sitting down, but still placing himself in their gravity. “Can I get something stronger?”

“Might I suggest lighter fluid?” Charlie said. He barely flinched when Neil smacked him in the arm with a bar rag.

The man huffed. “I’ll take a rum and coke.”

Pitts, who had sidelined himself at the table by his office, hopped back into the bar and prepared the drink himself, sliding it over to the man with a genuine, “Sorry for the bad luck, buddy.”

The man slumped down into the stool next to Todd and attempted to crack a smile. “I’ve had to have set some kind of record, huh.”

“Oh, definitely.”

“Yeah, that sounds about right.”

“Well, actually -”

But Pitts apparently did not have a more miserable story to share and trailed off.

“Well, don’t worry now,” Charlie said, reaching around Todd to clap the man on the back. “You’re amongst fellow lonely hearts now.”

“Speak for yourself,” Pitts and a returning Ginny said at the same time.

Todd dared to glance at Neil, who appeared to be studying a smudge on a martini glass with a scientist’s interest. Heart speeding up at only that image, Todd had to agree with Charlie. He certainly felt desperately lonely.

“Knox Overstreet,” the man said, sticking his hand out for Todd, then Charlie to shake. “And I’m a lonely heart.”

“Hi, Knox,” they all droned together and Todd watched Neil as he laughed with everyone else, wondering how one person could shine bright enough to light up a whole bar.

…

There were very few fights at the bar. It never attracted that kind of crowd, not when the likes of Todd Anderson nursing one beer, Knox Overstreet sipping vodka sodas, and Charlie Dalton all bark with no bite populated the place every night. It all looked too clean cut and bright for anyone seeking out a _Roadhouse_ bar to stumble in.

Fights had happened though.

One night, a group of half-drunk college boys who claimed to know Chet Danbury took over the back room. As they smashed their way to black out, one of the boys, whiskey-stupid and handsy, grabbed Ginny’s ass in full view of the bar.

Charlie kicked his stool over going at the guy, but Ginny had already kneed him in the balls by the time he got there. The problem was, Charlie just had to get a punch in. It became clear fast the boys in the back could forgive a fiesty waitress, but not her meddling sad sack patron.

The jackasses ended up on the street, but Todd was drenched in beer, Knox had a swollen lip, Neil a bruised cheek, Pitts a sore shoulder and ribs, and Charlie a deep, dark black eye and blood pouring out of his nose.

“My heroes,” Ginny said while sweeping up the piles of glass off the sticky floor.

Most of the other customers stayed after the fight was through, even with the mess. Hey, it was a bar after all.

…

Neil knew he shouldn’t be doing it. Surely there was some by-law against it in the Superior Bartender’s Rule Book that Pitts insisted exists.

It was all in the name of getting Todd to stay just a little bit longer. That had to count toward the greater good. Early on in Todd’s career as a regular, Neil noticed he’d only order one beer and go home when that beer was finished. It did take Todd roughly two to three hours to drain that singular beer, but when he arrived at eight, that meant Todd was gone by eleven. So if Neil topped off his drink a couple of times throughout the night, while Todd was chatting with Ginny or listening to Knox’s latest failures in love, that added another hour or two to their time with Todd.

Everyone won, in Neil’s opinion. Sometimes, lately, Todd stayed right up until closing, sometimes even after Knox and Charlie called it a night. On good nights - the empty ones - Neil put his textbook on the bar and Todd helped him write out index cards with obscure medical terminology that made Neil’s ears bleed when he tried to recall them.

“What made you want to be a doctor?” Todd asked one night. There was one sip left in his glass, but he hadn’t touched it in over an hour. The clock above the door counted down to three in the morning and Neil did not want to leave.

“Honestly?” Neil rubbed at his arid eyes and dropped his pencil, hand too cramped to continue. “It’s what my dad wants me to do.”

“Oh,” Todd said, though Neil didn’t think he sounded all that surprised. “Well, you’re going to make a great doctor.”

Neil doubted that every day, but when Todd said it so earnestly, he wanted to believe it. “What about you?” Neil asked, just a little sick of medical talk. “What did your father want you to be?”

Todd smiled down at his small stack of index cards, still soldiering on and writing down information for Neil because he was a saint who hadn’t realized Neil’s not worth it. Not by a long shot.

“I don’t think my dad really wanted me to be anything,” Todd admitted with a shrug. “I have an older brother and he’s -...he’s the one they wanted to be the football star in high school and the lawyer now. They’re happy I’m getting my PhD because…”

He trailed off, but Neil could fill in the blank. “It gives them something to brag about.”

Todd glanced up at him, eyes so wide and full of understanding, and suddenly the room felt very hot. “But what do you want to be?” Neil asked, wanting to stretch this moment into an eternity, desperate for Todd not to realize his drink was all lukewarm grit and foam and see no reason to stay.

“A professor - I think,” Todd answered, cheeks reddening as they so often did when they got him to talk about himself in any capacity. “I - I don’t know. Maybe I’m too - I’m not sure I have what it takes. But I have this professor right now - Professor Keating - and…”

It was like Neil stumbled upon a secret key to one of the rare topics Todd allowed himself to ramble on about and Neil stood transfixed. There was something about Todd when he talked - really, genuinely talked. His eyes lit up, his cheeks glowed, his hands spun, and everything in his body seemed to relax, as if he forgot for a minute to worry about the whole world watching him. All Neil wanted now was to find every other key.

It took Pitts kicking his own co-owner out of the bar to close it out that night.

…

Knox had to ask himself where he was going so wrong if a guy like Richard Cameron could bring a bright, happy fiancee into the bar every other week and he couldn’t get anyone to look twice in his direction. He’d watch from time to time as Cameron rose to get them another round of chilled white wines and see the way his fiancee’s eyes followed him, a smile dancing up to her eyes. It was the stuff of movies, that lingering shot of the starstruck man watching the woman that kept surprising him walk away, all under moonlight that glittered over the river.

“Yuck,” Charlie said, gagging into his glass. “You know they’re not really happy, right?”

When they had left, Cameron had helped her into her coat, wrapped her red scarf twice around her neck, and kissed her on the cheek for good measure. Charlie had gagged at that display, too, but it looked like love to Knox.

“What makes you say that?” Knox asked. Neil, wiping down their wine glasses, glanced over at them. Todd, two stools down on Charlie’s other side, leaned in a little further. Ginny, across the bar, rested on her elbows against the counter, empty tray cradled between her forearms.

“Sure, they like each other now because she gets to show off her bright, shiny engagement ring and he gets to check another box in the anal retentive man’s guide to a proper, upstanding life,” Charlie said, lip curling as it so often did when Richard Cameron was the topic of discussion. “But after the perfectly acceptable wedding, they’re going to settle down into their perfectly acceptable house with their perfectly acceptable jobs and have perfectly average children until one day they wake up and realize they fell in love with the idea of this perfectly average life and that perfectly average life ended up being boring as shit. And because they married an idea and not a person, nothing can save them. They’d be better off dying alone.”

No one in the vicinity of the bar spoke for a long time. At last, Ginny drifted off to clear a recently vacated table. Neil wandered to the farthest corner of the bar to top off a beer. Todd craned his head toward the jukebox playing some ancient Bob Dylan song.

Finally, Knox sighed and pushed his empty pint away. “That’s really pessimistic, Charlie.”

Charlie polished off the last sip of his. “That’s reality, Knoxious.”

“You don’t think all love is like that though. This is just a Cameron-related thing.”

Charlie gave Knox a rueful smile that did nothing to fill the pit now in his stomach. “Whatever you say.”

There was something about that resignation hanging like a storm cloud over Charlie’s head that sent a bolt of passion straight to Knox’s head. “I think you’re wrong,” Knox announced, slamming his palm against the bartop. “I think one day you’re going to fall in love and you’re not going to know what hit you.” Knox stood and smacked the bar again. “I don’t just think it, I know it.”

“Are you drunk already, Knoxious?”

“I’m -” Knox looked at Charlie, who seemed thoroughly bemused by everything Knox just said, and all his brain could come up with was, “I’m going to the bathroom.” As Knox strode toward the back, without turning around, he called out, “And I am going to prove you wrong.”

…

“How is he going to prove that?” Stephen Meeks, a dear old friend of Pitts, asked from the other end of the bar.

Ginny, observing Charlie laugh to himself as he watched Knox go before he turned back to his glass with a broad grin on his face, snorted. “Gee, I wonder.”

…

There was a guy named Hopkins who came in once a week and tried to clean up at pool. He claimed to play only for drinking money, but there was one legendary night they all watched him pocket at least a thousand bucks from three economics majors who didn’t know when to say when. Charlie, who had tried to have full conversations with Hopkins on numerous occasions and described it as talking to an animatronic with faulty wiring, called him a pool savant. Ginny advocated for giving him a lifetime ban, from pool and from ever coming back to the bar again. Pitts continued dragging his feet about it.

Until one night, Hopkins went on a hot streak without taking a punch, strolled up the bar to buy two beers, and placed one of them in front of Todd. “I can teach you how to shoot pool, if you want.”

Todd went purple and stuttered through a decline, Knox and Charlie snickering behind Hopkins’ back. Neil’s glare could cut through stone.

The rejection clearly did not bruise Hopkins ego. An hour later, he saddled up behind Ginny clearing a table and asked when her shift was over. She promptly shoved him into the jukebox.

Watching the scene, Neil said to Pitts, “I’m thinking it’s Hopkins’ last night.”

“Oh absolutely.”

…

There were a million reasons why this was a bad idea, but Todd ushered Professor Keating into the bar anyway.

“What a wonderful atmosphere!” Keating announced as they hung their coats from the coat rack by the door. Todd nodded in agreement, though it had been weeks since he took any stock in the atmosphere of the bar.

For a moment, Todd did his best to see the full room through Keating’s eyes. His eyes first tracked Ginny, hair swept up on a bun held together by a pen, as she strode toward the back with a full tray of drinks balanced on one arm. As she passed the jukebox, Pitts said something that made her laugh. The drink tray did not budge an inch. Pitts slipped a quarter into his own machine and chose “Elenore” by The Turtles. The opening piano chords followed his footsteps as he moved to the bar, where Charlie and Knox were shouting at the TV, cheering on some hockey team they both followed. Behind them, Neil put the finishing touches on two dirty martinis, a recipe he had taught Todd to mix a few days ago. Even though Todd hated the taste, he couldn’t say he hated the lesson.

It was a normal Wednesday night, all happening under the dim but warm glow of the overhead lights. There were other people, too, groups of graduate students discussing their dissertations at the tables, a few couples biding time before a dinner reservation, a couple of solitary patrons yelling along with Charlie and Knox at the game. Todd couldn’t stop looking at Neil, though, handing off the martinis to Ginny and keeping up a casual conversation with an older man, laughing in all the right places. When he turned to make the man another drink, his eyes caught Todd’s and his face burst into a grin that always had Todd faltering back a step from its sheer magnitude.

It was a wonderful atmosphere.

Todd led Keating to two empty stools and stopped thinking that this was a mistake. “Good evening, good sir,” Keating said when Neil made his way over to them. Somehow, Neil’s smile grew wider. “What do you recommend for an aging academic and his finest pupil?”

“You must be Professor Keating,” Neil said. He reached for a pint glass, already knowing tonight, like any other night, Todd would order his one beer. “Todd’s told me a lot about you.”

“Ah, all good things, I’d hope,” Keating said.

“Of course,” Neil said easily, sliding a full glass over to Todd. “All the aging academics I know like whiskey.”

“Sounds just about right to me,” Keating said with a small nod of agreement and a gracious smile.

They spent the next hour discussing their well-treaded topics - the Romantics, Walden, the new wave of modern poets. Neil gravitated toward them more often than not and they talked of Shakespeare and Chekhov and Neil’s old desires of becoming an actor.

“I mean this as the highest compliment when I say you seem like the type,” Keating said.

Neil, though with a wistful look on his face, shrugged. “Some things aren’t meant to be.” He glanced at Todd and smiled. “I’ll leave the arts to Todd.”

“Yes, he is a gifted one, our Mr. Anderson.”

And though Neil had yet to read a single line of verse Todd had written, he nodded. “He is.”

…

Stephen Meeks did not visit the bar often.

It all really came down to his job, the long nights he spent toiling in the UVM chemistry lab. When he finally dragged himself out, he wanted to see his bed, not a college bar. And when you knew someone for all your lifetime, as Meeks has known Pitts, that friend did not get offended when you could only make it to their business once in a blue moon.

Meeks, however, knew the people in the bar as little old ladies knew their favorite characters in a soap opera. Pitts provided him with weekly recaps. He followed along with Knox’s hopeless search for love, Charlie’s struggles with employment, and the simmering relationship between Neil and Todd. The secrets Meeks knew could fill a tell-all book, if Meeks were ever interested in that kind of thing.

“Things are going to come to a head,” Pitts said, a bit desperately, over the phone one day. “They’ve got to be.”

“The season finale is approaching?”

“Huh?”

Meeks rolled his eyes knowing Pitts couldn’t see him. “Never mind,” he said and proceeded to tell Pitts everything that nearly blew up in the lab yesterday. Drama in exchange for drama.

…

Charlie had a problem and he wasn’t going to find the solution to it at the bottom of a pint glass. He spent the worst half of the night seeking it out there anyway.

It was a testament to how close they’d become that Neil hadn’t asked him what was wrong. About fifteen minutes ago, he had slid a cup of water beside Charlie’s pint glass, but that was it. Neil spent most of the night splitting his time between actually doing his job and puzzling over a crossword with Todd and Ginny.

It fell to Knox to ask the million dollar question. “What’s going on, Charlie?”

He hadn’t been by the bar for most of the night. There was another blind-date and this one actually showed up. Twenty minutes late and with her skittish eyes always on the door, but she did show up. Knox managed to wring out at least an hour of conversation, but Charlie didn’t count on her being the future Mrs. Overstreet.

Charlie’s neck suddenly got hot at the thought of Knox someday playing groom. He loosened his tie, unsure why he had kept it done up until now. “The usual, Knoxious.”

“What’s the usual?” Knox asked, sliding into the empty stool next to him.

“Oh, you know,” Charlie said, swirling the last sip of beer in his glass. “Another job bites the dust.”

Knox’s eyes widened. “You got fired?” The silent ‘again’ rang in Charlie’s ears.

“No,” Charlie said, though he knew he had been getting close. “I quit. I’m starting to think the rat races just aren’t for me.”

“Well, what do you want to do?” Knox asked.

Charlie tried not to bristle at Knox, shiny and new attorney at law per his father’s request, asking him what he wanted to do with his life. What a collection of desperate to please losers they all were. Only Pitts seemed to be doing what he wanted.

“Hey, Pittsy!” Charlie called. Pitts' head popped out of his office door a second later. “What’s the meaning of life?”

“Charlie,” Knox said, not concealing his frustration.

“What? It’s a legitimate question.”

Knox sighed. “You can’t snark your way out of every serious conversation.”

“Oh, we were having a serious conversation?” Charlie asked, and it’s laced with more bitterness and cruelty than he might have intended. He just wanted to know why Knox cared so much. They were bar friends, conspirators in misery. They weren’t supposed to be solving each other’s quarter-life crisis or convincing one another to believe in love.

Todd, Neil, and Ginny were all stealing glances at him now. When Ginny saw she’d been caught staring, she turned back to Neil and Todd and whispered something that got gobbled up by the surrounding noise and the continued ringing in Charlie’s ears. It wasn’t only Knox; Charlie had found a place where caring came as a default setting.

As he started stumbling home, Charlie had to reckon with the fact he cared, too. He cared that Neil was shouldering the burden of a medical career he didn’t want, and he cared that Todd struggled with being his own worst enemy every day, and he cared that every stupid person who got the lucky chance of a date with Knox threw it away. And he cared that they might think, sometimes, that Charlie didn’t care.

It was all strangely scary and complicated and Charlie couldn’t stop thinking about Pitts, strolling over to the bar and slapping Charlie on the back, and saying, “The mean of life is the pursuit of happiness, Charlie.”

“Like the Will Smith movie?” Charlie had said. No one had laughed.

The wind was picking up, biting at Charlie’s nose. A storm was coming, the first of the season. Charlie felt cold.

“Hey! Slow down!” The wind must have drowned out the racing footsteps, but not the call. Charlie stalled on the sidewalk and within seconds, Knox was beside him, out of breath. “I thought we could walk home together.”

“Was Neil worried I was going to die along the way?” Charlie asked as he resumed walking. He liked that Knox had to work, just a little bit, to keep up.

“Nah,” Knox said, though Charlie could tell it was a small lie. “Anyway, I’m the one who’s most likely to get mugged.”

“Ah, so you’re just using me for protection.”

Charlie swore Knox’s face flushed, but it could easily be the wind and the cold. “Yeah, something like that.”

“Hey, Knox. Have any of your dates-” Charlie stopped himself, hardly believing what a dangerous road he almost blindly charged down. He swallowed. “Have any of your dates ever wondered why you insist on taking them to such a shitty bar?”

“It’s like you’re asking for Pitts to never let you in again,” Knox said with a laugh. Then, he shrugged. “I mean, some of the ones who actually showed up noticed I was friends with all of you, so I think they assumed I wanted back up or something. This one guy though wanted only to do dinner, so we went to that sushi place. You know that one on…”

Charlie stopped listening around ‘dinner.’ Despite the freezing temperatures, his face suddenly felt extremely hot. A voice in the back of his head, suspiciously Neil sounding, thought leave it to Charlie Dalton to get the answer he was after without even asking the direct question. Charlie gave himself the pat on the back. He deserved a small miracle tonight.

“Charlie?”

“Huh?”

Charlie caught sight of a street sign up ahead. They were closing in on his building, but Charlie found he had stopped minding the cold.

“I said I’m sorry about the job,” Knox said. He sounded so obnoxiously earnest that Charlie almost cursed himself for how it made his heart rate speed up.

“I’m sorry for being an asshole,” Charlie said, and because he wanted Knox to know he meant it, added, “I know I need to figure it out. What I want to do with my life.”

“You will,” Knox said, with all the faith in the world. “You’re Charlie Dalton.”

…

No one was allowed to play or perform “Piano Man” at the bar. Pitts forbade it. A patron once started humming the “da da da’s” under his breath and Pitts dragged him out by the ear and threw him into a coming storm of traffic and weather. Pitts even went as far as gutting the jukebox of most Billy Joel, from the inoffensive “Scenes at an Italian Restaurant” to the cursed “We Didn’t Start the Fire.”

He kept “Vienna” though and Neil made a habit out of putting the song on at two in the morning when the glasses started getting foggy and Pitts disappeared into the back office to perform a blood sacrifice, or perfect time travel, or do whatever he did in there.

“ _Slow down, you crazy child._  
 _You’re so ambitious for a juvenile…_ ”

One night, as Neil wiped tears and vodka condensation off the bar, Todd looked at him over the rim of his only beer. “I love this song. I had never heard it before coming here, but now -” He trailed off with a wistful smile that had Neil coming apart at the seams.

Todd Anderson was not saying “I love you,” but for a moment, for Neil, it felt painfully close. That was the language of love, wasn’t it? I loved the book you told me to read, the one that got you through college and bad acting gigs. I loved that movie you recommended and I cried at the end, the way you cried in the back of the movie theater. I loved how you made that drink, and the color of the sweater you wore today, and the song you have to listen to at the close of every night because it slows the world down for just a few minutes. I loved all the things you showed me that made you intrinsically you, even if I didn’t know the full story. Yet.

Charlie’d laugh if he heard that inner monologue and he’d laugh harder if he knew how precariously close Neil got to blurting it all out, cold read, no rehearsal. Instead of vomiting out his heart, Neil smiled back at Todd and said, “It’s my favorite.”

“ _Why don't you realize, Vienna waits for you_  
 _When will you realize, Vienna waits for you?_ ”

…

“I’m setting you up with the girl of your dreams,” Ginny announced to Knox on a slow Tuesday night.

“I thought Knox was barred from ever going on a blind date in this bar again,” Charlie said, interrupting a conversation he was having with Pitts on the merits of double stuffed versus triple stuffed oreos.

“My friend would never stand him up,” Ginny said matter-of-factly before turning her back on Charlie completely, boxing him out of the conversation to tell Knox, “Her name is Chris, she’s getting her Masters in American Literature from UVM, and she cries while watching Titanic.”

“No one cries harder than Knox while watching Titanic,” Charlie said, tilting so far back in his stool he was at risk of tipping it backwards and landing himself neck first on the floor.

“Like I said, girl of your dreams.” Ginny placed both hands on Knox’s shoulders. “Tomorrow night, eight. Say yes.”

“Sure, why not?”

Neil, who watched the short conversation play out while making two gin and tonics, knew Ginny long enough to wonder why she was suddenly in the business of setting up customer-turned-friends with her single school friends. Plenty of friends had come through the bar in the year and a half Ginny had worked here and never had she come close to suggesting they date Charlie, or Pitts, or Neil (not for lack of numbers left Neil’s tip jar).

Wednesday night arrived quickly and after Ginny delivered a vodka soda and rum and coke to Knox and Chris, Neil pulled her aside to ask, “So, what exactly is going on here?”

“What do you mean?” Ginny asked with a blank face.

Pitts wandered closer and jutted his chin out at Knox and Chris, giggling over a joke Neil had to imagine Chris made. “I think he means what inspired that.”

“Is it so weird to want to help out our friend?” Ginny asked, but her offended frown was so fake even Knox would have seen through it.

“You’re scheming,” Pitts said with a knitted brow and Neil could see the gears in his head turning, trying to crack the conundrum that was Ginny Danbury.

“I have orders to take,” Ginny said, turning on her heels and walking down the length of the bar. Her shoulder brushed past Todd, who sat alone nursing his usual hardly half-drunk beer. “Huh, Charlie’s not here tonight.”

Nothing in her tone suggested she was even slightly surprised.

…

Ginny loved her boys, but as she told Chris often, they put to shame the quote from Mary Poppins that went “though we adore men individually, we agree that as a group they're rather stupid.” Her boys were as stupid as individuals as they were in a group.

“Knox really is a sweetheart,” Chris said. She sat perched on the pool table, watching as Ginny wiped down the last few tables.

“But?”

“You were right. It was so much ‘Charlie thinks this’ and ‘Charlie would say that.’ If I were Charlie, I’d be worried I had a stalker.”

Ginny snorted. As if Charlie was capable of noticing that kind of attention. He seemed to have a keen eye for girls or guys who gave him a quick once over from across the room, but anyone showing any active romantic interest flew right over Charlie’s head. It was as though all the boys suffered from the same strain of stupidity, the primary symptom obliviousness.

“Oh, and your friends, Todd and Neil, are very cute,” Chris said and Ginny had to roll her eyes.

“Let’s not even get started on that. We’d be here all night.” And Ginny had just swiped her rag over the final tabletop.

Chris hopped off the pool table. “Are you heading home?”

“I’m going to help Gerard lock up,” Ginny said, slipping by Chris with her cleaning bucket in hand. “I’m sure Neil and Todd will walk out with you.”

“Uh-huh,” Chris said and Ginny’s glad her back was to Chris, so she could ignore the smirk surely spreading on her face. “Let me know what ends up happening with Knox and Charlie. I want to give a speech at their wedding.”

“Who’s wedding?” Neil already had his coat slipped on, a scarf looped twice around his neck. Todd stood beside him, also braced for the weather, the little Ginny could see of his face as red as ever. How easy it would be for Ginny to answer ‘yours.’

“Yours,” Chris said. Ginny had to bite her own tongue to keep from gaping. “The girls next to me tonight were drawing straws to see who got to be the bride. Did the winner not get you a ring?”

“No, what a cheapskate,” Neil said, chuckling. Then, his eyes flickering over to Todd, he hastily added, “I’m really not interested in that kind of thing though. All the girls asking me out at the bar.”

Ginny caught sight of her own distorted, disbelieving face in a whiskey bottle. Stupid, stupid boys.

…

Another waitress did work at the bar. She had wispy blonde hair and a nasally voice and wore heavy blue eyeshadow like the 80s never went out of style. There was nothing glaringly wrong with her - she got along with Ginny just fine and Charlie flirted with her from time to time, mostly out of mutual boredom. She just tended to float in the background, content there.

Until -

“That quiet guy has become a real regular,” she said one afternoon, about a half hour before they’re set to open. “You should ask him out already.”

Neil had run from a three hour lecture, charging through his day on four hours of sleep, and he had heard half of the words Gloria said, possibly not in the correct order. Still, the glass he had been wiping down nearly shattered on the floor. “Shit - sorry. What?”

“He clearly likes you and you’ve never genuinely tried to flirt with someone here before him.”

“I’m not _flirting_ with him…”

“You’re just staring longingly and desperately into his eyes.” Ginny had snuck up on him, her arms full with the last delivery crate. The bottles all clinked together like windchimes as she set the box down. It was the only noise in the place.

“You better scoop him up before someone else does,” Gloria finally said, her tone sing-song, and went back to taking the chairs and stools down.

It wasn’t meant as a threat. Neil knew that. It still gave Neil a very sinking feeling that he had been paralyzed this entire time, anxious and waiting for some special moment that someone else had already taken.

“You and Todd are more similar than you think,” Ginny said later that night, while Todd was distracted by an argument Charlie and Knox were having. “You both tend to look at a situation and think it’s hopeless before you’ve even tried.”

“Great foundation for a future relationship,” Neil muttered, a sudden squalor of bitterness overcoming him. Then he stole a glance at Todd, laughing softly at how incensed Knox was getting and the storm dissipated as quickly as it came. Todd tended to have that effect.

“You know I didn’t mean it that way,” Ginny said and he heard the eye roll in her tone. “It’s only going to happen if you get over the what if’s and seize the day.”

Neil looked at her, eyebrows raised. “Okay, what comic a day calendar from Pitts’ office did you get that from?”

Ginny snorted. “Calvin & Hobbes.”

…

Richard Cameron considered the bar his favorite vice. It suited his tastes perfectly - small without being a hole-in-the-wall, drinks that were low-priced but not cheap, all surfaces wiped down and never sticky. His friends liked it, his fiancee liked it, and he was sure his father would find it quite charming if he ever came to town.

The man at the bar - Charlie Dalton - was the one significant but bearable blemish.

There was a night - Cameron could not recall why he remembered it so clearly - when he went up to the bar to order his usual two glasses of chilled white wine. Dalton was complaining to the usual bartender about an issue with a boss.

The owner - Pitts he had heard him called - came to serve him instead. “Your usual?”

“Perfect.” And while he prepared the drinks, Cameron glanced around the bar. It was crowded for a Monday night, nearly every table full, the waitresses bussing around delivering new drinks to already overflowing tabletops. Cameron whistled low. “Have you ever thought about opening another location?”

Distantly, he noticed the other side of the bar grew quiet.

“Sometimes,” Pitts said while pouring. “I’m not sure it’s really possible right now. My partner’s a future doctor in the making.”

Cameron glanced down the bar at Neil, chuckling. “You’re in medical school at UVM?”

“Quite the tone of surprise,” Dalton drawled from his stool.

“No surprise,” Cameron replied. “I just thought _my_ work schedule was packed.” He turned back to Pitts. “I’m sure there are plenty of people who’d want to invest. You should think about it and let me know. Several of my connections at the bank have been looking for some new opportunities.”

Richard Cameron left the conversation with two glasses of wine and a happy feeling he had given a sage suggestion. He just really could not recall why it was worth remembering. Perhaps it was the subtle sting from the fact the owner never did follow up.

...

Back at the bar, Knox scoffed. “His connections at the bank. He means his father’s connections at the bank. Right, Charlie?”

There was no response.

“Charlie?”

Todd, Neil, and Knox were all looking at him now, observing Charlie’s eyes flickering from the departed Cameron to Pitts, a quietly contemplative look on his face.

“Something wrong?” Neil asked, pretending not to see an older man making a show of glancing at his watch and tapping his fingers on the counter.

Charlie seemed to snap out of it, shrugging his shoulders. “Nah.” He glanced at Knox, a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. “Just thinking about my future.”

…

Todd knew he shouldn’t be doing it. There was an actual rule against it, scrawled across a chalkboard, double underlined, hanging above the jukebox.

His palms were sweaty. The bar was packed, as it usually was on open-mic nights, every act dragging along every friend and acquaintance they knew and promising them all a round of drinks if they made sure to clap the loudest. Todd was used to trailing after Charlie and Knox, who holed up in the backroom by the pool table to avoid the crowds (and - in Charlie’s case - heckle the performers without risking a punch from an overzealous boyfriend), but he made a point of sticking to the bar tonight. Even though it made his palms sweat and his cheeks flush and his heart beat like an over-hit snare drum.

What was the worst that could happen, he asked himself as he watched the next guitarist finish fine tuning his instrument.

Pitts might kill him. Charlie and Knox would laugh at him. Ginny’d pity him, more than she already did.

Neil could never talk to him again.

There was no worse scenario than Neil never speaking to him again.

Todd shot up. He saw Neil’s confused look in his periphery, but he started toward the side of the stage at the exact moment Ginny ushered the last act off and announced into the microphone, “And now for a crowd favorite, Mr. Robert Leonard. Please make him feel welcome.”

The ecstatic applause thundered in Todd’s ears, echoing still even as it died off and the guitarist tapped once on the microphone.

“We’re actually starting off with a request. It’s dedicated to our wonderful bartender, Neil. Tip him well, ladies and gentleman -” a long and loud wolf whistle erupted from the back of the bar “- this is ‘Just the Way You Are’ by Billy Joel.”

“ _Don't go changing to try and please me_  
 _You never let me down before…_ ”

The door to the Pitts’ office swung open, Pitts' sixth sense triggered. He stood in the doorway, mouth slightly agape as if at the audacity and Todd envisioned the first domino falling in his greatest nightmare scenario. Pitts' one slow step toward the small stage was met by Ginny, gently touching his elbow and leaning up to whisper something into his ear.

“ _I took the good times; I'll take the bad times_  
 _I'll take you just the way you are…_ ”

Knox had drifted back into the main room, Charlie peering just over his shoulder. When Todd caught both their eyes, he saw Charlie start to move in his direction, only for Knox to elbow him hard in the ribs. There was no way to hear any of what they were saying over the music and the conversations still pulsing around him, but he swore he saw Knox’s lips form, “...it’s a moment!”

“ _I said I love you and that's forever_  
 _And this I promise from the heart…_ ”

At that moment, with all the beatings of his heart made clear in lyric, Todd dared to look back at the bar. Everyone on stools and huddled around waiting for drinks had stopped, as if someone had frozen the moment in time and hung it on the wall of a gallery. The portrait’s center - and the center of all things for Todd nowadays - was Neil, standing behind the bar but staring transfixed at the stage.

Todd swallowed and found it all got stuck in his throat. He had no idea what to make of Neil’s shining eyes or his slightly parted mouth, until suddenly those eyes darted over to Todd and his face broke into a soft and knowing smile.

The guitarist struck the song’s final chord and the picture unfroze.

There were still further acts to listen to, Neil had more drinks to make, and Todd watched it all unfold in blurry, fast forwarded images. The only thing in sharp focus was a clock over the bar counting down to closing time. A clock and Neil. Always Neil.

“Good luck,” Knox said as he shrugged on his coat five minutes past closing, looking very much like he wanted to press his face up against the front window and watch whatever came next. For a moment, Todd wished he could live inside Knox’s head, inside the wonderful fantasies he must always be constructing. Nothing could ever go wrong there.

He had to let them go, though, catching Charlie saying “You’re such a sap,” just has the door softly clicked closed.

That left him and Neil.

His nerves fraying but his adrenaline spiking dangerously, Todd turned back toward the bar and directly collided with Neil’s chest.

“I’m so sorry!” Neil’s eyes were almost comically wide, but his hands were steadying on Todd’s elbows. “I just got a little overexcited. That song - that was you, wasn’t it?”

Neil suddenly looked unsure, a shade that didn’t fit him. Todd found he had nothing to reassure him, nothing but his own stumbling words. No lyrics, no guitar, just himself. “Yeah - yeah, it was. I was going to ask him to sing ‘Vienna’ but we always hear ‘Vienna’ and I wanted you to know -”

Anything Todd had left to say was left pressed against Neil’s lips, words spread across his half-smile. Neil’s hands came up to cup Todd’s cheeks and Todd had to wind his arms around Neil’s back, holding on for dear life, clutching at what he’s wanted for so many months now.

“Sorry,” Neil whispered as he pulled away, only by an inch, apologizing again for something that didn’t need it. The pad of his thumb skated across Todd’s cheek and it amazed Todd how much promise could be held in such a small action. “Ginny’s been telling me to seize the day lately. You beat me to it.”

Barely, Todd thought. Tonight, the world slowed down just long enough for Todd to catch up with him.

…

With the holiday season came two towering Christmas trees, dragged in by Pitts and Neil in the dead of night and potentially still home to a myriad of woodland families. Decked in shiny silver tinsel and colored lights anyway, patrons were invited to bring an ornament and adorn the trees with a little piece of themselves. More than one sad-sack sitting at the bar looked caught up staring at one ornament or another, undoubtedly playing a black-and-white memory in their head of a Christmas long since passed.

“Bah humbug.”

The sudden voice buzzing in Knox’s ear made him jump half out of his skin. Ginny’s laughter came through the other ear as she placed down her tray and leaned into Knox’s space. “What’s got you so mopey?”

“I’m not mopey,” Knox answered, but his mouth pulled down in an unconscious frown that said otherwise.

Truthfully, Knox had been watching Neil dangling a prickly piece of mistletoe over Todd’s head, as he had been doing at every opportunity since the first of December. They never actually kissed, but Neil would brush his lips over Todd’s cheek, or his nose, or his forehead, or some other chaste and sickeningly affectionate place that left Todd blushing and Knox feeling lonely and loveless.

Not helping was the glaringly empty seat next to him, the stool unfilled for days now.

“Where’s Charlie been?” Knox asked, doing his best to make it sound like that was not the only question circling his mind like vulture every night that week.

“I don’t know,” Ginny said with a shrug as she accepted two vodka sodas from Neil. “Why don’t you text him like a regular person and find out.”

A second truth was that Knox had texted Charlie, daily, but all his banal messages about half priced drinks and Rangers games received equally banal and non committal responses back with no clues as to what was keeping Charlie away. Knox couldn’t sum up the nerves to ask Charlie, point blank, where he was.

Knox had his phone out, screen open to his text thread with Charlie but no message typed out, when Ginny returned once more.

“You haven’t had any dates in awhile, Knox.”

“Way to kick a guy while he’s down, Gin,” Pitts said, sliding over another beer to Knox that he knew was on the house without having to ask. That somehow made Knox feel even more pitiful. “Whatever happened to you and Ginny’s friend?”

Whatever did happen to Knox and Chris Noel, the proclaimed girl of his dreams? That was what Chris was, the living construction of everything Knox fantasized. The laughter like jingling bells, the smile like a slow sunrise, the sweet disposition that took all his romance in blushful stride. How was Knox supposed to know the dream wouldn’t make him feel anything at all?

He missed the gentle needle in his side, pushing back at his more sentimental impulses. He missed laughter that was sometimes a little teasing, sometimes a little at his own expense, sometimes riled him up more than he thought laughter ever could. He missed things he never expected he wanted, missed things as though he had them all before. It was confusing as hell and he wanted Charlie here to tell him he was crazy and yank him out of the romantic deep end.

Knox looked down at his phone again, at the empty message box, and started to type another banal thing about the hockey game he hadn’t been watching. It was a pretty poor substitute for “I miss you.”

…

Christmas Eve rolled softly into the early hours of Christmas Day and the bar was alive with music. They had rolled out the old piano into the main room and belted out carols until everyone was hoarse and merry, but after the door locked and the real pianists headed home, the only song left was a poor rendition of ‘Heart and Soul’ plunked over and over again. The piano was terribly out of tune, so every note sounded dissonant, but there was nothing dissonant about the way Todd laughed every time Neil hit an extremely off note.

“You’re not spending Christmas with your family?” Todd had asked just before opening.

“Nah,” Neil said casually, even though his chest felt tight. “I’ve been telling them for years now I need the breaks to get ahead on my work and that’s all they need to hear to be happy.”

One of the things Neil loved about Todd was how he never looked at Neil with pity, only a sad understanding.

They chased the sadness away with singing, and Pitts’ own eggnog, and strategically placed mistletoe. Over the back of the piano, Neil saw it had just begun to snow and he thrilled at the thought he wouldn’t only be walking Todd to his car tonight. Even after a few weeks, Neil still felt his heart skip every time he opened the door to his apartment, Todd right behind him.

At the sight of the snow and his wandering thoughts, Neil hadn’t noticed that half the song had stopped. Todd’s hands hovered over the keys, but the melody had gone.

“Do you ever miss acting?” Todd asked.

The song halted on a jarring chord. Neil’s hands dropped to his lap and he felt Todd tense beside him. Knowing him so well, Neil felt the apology reverberating in Todd’s body. Before it could spill out, Neil said, “All the time.”

Todd exhaled. “Do you think you’ll go back to it? One day?”

“My dad once said that after I finish medical school, I can do what I damn please.” Neil hit the lowest note and it was so heavy he could practically see it bouncing off the walls. “So maybe one day I will.”

“Doesn’t it feel like you’re wasting your time though?” Todd asked. “Sorry, I - it’s Christmas and I’m bringing up - sorry. It’s just sometimes I’m worried that you’re not, that you could be…”

“Happier?” Neil finished quietly. Glancing behind him, Neil took in the silvery tinsel wrapped around the bar, the mistletoe hung on every doorway, the presents stacked under the potluck tree - presents with actual names on them for actual people who made this place what it was. He turned back to Todd and smiled. “There are more things here that make me happy than not. I have the bar, I have Pitts, and Charlie, and Knox, and Ginny. And I’ve got you. You make me insanely happy.”

The flush that spread across Todd’s cheeks made up for everything, for all the roads not taken and all the battles not fought that put Neil where he was at this moment. Todd smiled back. “You make me happy, too.”

Feeling like he might burst if he stayed still a second longer, Neil slammed his hands down on the piano, twenty inharmonious notes erupting at once. “Thank you, everyone, you have been a terrific audience,” Neil announced to an empty bar. Underscored by Todd’s musical laughter, Neil finished with, “We will be here for the rest of the year!”

And hopefully for a long time after that, Neil thought as he and Todd gathered up their coats.

Neil held out his hand to Todd as they reached the door. “Home?”

“Home.”

…

“You haven’t been plotting my murder this whole time, have you?”

In fairness to Knox, Charlie deserved that question and the very unsubtle passive-aggression thrown his way on the entire drive over. If Charlie accepted he was a fully fledged adult tripping into his late twenties, he’d have had this conversation with Knox at the bar over their usual drinks and the usual noise. Charlie’d never accept he was a fully fledged adult without kicking and screaming, though, and a conversation at a bar was not half as fun as dragging Knox into a near condemned building on the other side of town.

It wasn’t half as romantic either. At least, that was what Charlie counted on.

Near the door, clearly ready to bolt at a second’s notice, Knox was still talking, “I didn’t imagine I’d go in an abandoned crack den…”

“It’s not a crack den, Knoxious. What’d you get that from, an after school special?”

Once again in fairness to Knox though, the building had seen better days. Even now, as Charlie walked the floor of the central room, he had to step over at least five rusted nails. When his foot hit a skewed floorboard, it wailed like a banshee. The sound bounced off walls covered in a decade of grime and hit a ceiling full of water stains like clusters of constellations.

“I think I just saw a rat,” Knox said, his face pale. His back was against the wall, inches from the door. “Why are we here, Charlie? You stop showing up to the bar for three weeks, you barely answered any of my messages, and then you drag me into a building that I think is about to swallow us whole.”

“It’s perfectly safe,” Charlie said, and at that exact moment, the pipes erupted with the sound of metal grinding metal. Over the shrieking noise, Charlie continued, “I wasn’t at the bar because I went down to see my father. For the holidays, but also for...”

Knox’s eyes widened. “What? Is he getting you another job? Is it going to be in New York?”

“Would you miss me if he did?” Charlie asked with a smirk. He’d feel less proud of the teasing if Knox didn’t look so concerned at the thought of Charlie leaving. Sue a guy for liking the idea of being yearned after. It’d be the first time in Charlie’s life.

And to be yearned after by a man like Knox, who put his whole heart on the line for anything he loved? That was nothing short of spectacular and probably more than Charlie deserved.

“What’s going on, Charlie?” Knox asked, and it was a question he’d posed to Charlie before. At least Charlie had something approaching a satisfying answer this time.

“I don’t want to be the kind of guy who keeps a list of things that make him feel alive.”

Knox tilted his head, his eyebrows furrowed. “I don’t really know what that means, Charlie.”

“I mean -” Charlie licked his lips, stalling to find the right words. “I don’t want to be the guy who spends his whole week looking forward to that one hockey game on Thursday night and that’s the highlight of his whole month. Every job my dad pushed me into, I just went, wanted to blow my brains out, and counted down the minutes until I got to be at the bar with all of you. So -”

Charlie swept his arms open wide, presenting the ramshack, scum filled interior of what maybe did used to be a crack den with all the pride he could muster.

“I now own a bar.”

Knox’s eyebrows flew up his forehead. “This place?” Charlie watched Knox survey the space once more, his nose wrinkling as if he were only now noticing the overpowering scent of neglect clinging onto every surface. “No offense, Charlie, but it’s kind of a dump.”

Charlie rolled his eyes, chuckling. “Do you have to be such a Negative Nancy all the time, Knoxious?” Knox sputtered like an offended schoolboy at that, which only made Charlie laugh in earnest. “Don’t worry, I knew what I was signing up for with you.”

Knox scoffed down at his shoes. “You didn’t have to sign up for anything.”

“Yeah, you just give it all to me for free.” Charlie winced the second after he said it and ducked his head away from the dumbstruck look Knox was giving him. “Sorry, not a great start to the second part of my two part thing.”

“What two part thing?”

“Part one, telling you about the bar,” Charlie said. “Part two, I was thinking of setting you up on a date. I can promise you he’s going to make fun of you for trying to order craft beer because you hate it every time -” Knox opened his mouth to protest that, but Charlie held up his hand, halting his complaint “- and he’ll root against whatever hockey team’s your favorite because he likes to see you riled up, but I can also promise he’ll show up. He really, really wants to show up.” Knox had that dumbstruck look on his face again, but Charlie swallowed down the urge to turn away. “So, what do you say?”

Knox blinked. That was all he did for a long moment - he blinked. That was enough to send Charlie’s brain into overdrive, scrambling for a way to take everything back, to take his heart back.

Then, as slow and sweet as a sunrise, a smile spread across Knox’s face. He shook his head, as if he couldn’t quite believe any of this was happening. Charlie was tempted to say join the club. But at last, Knox took a careful step forward.

“You’re lucky I like you so much,” Knox said, hopping over one of a thousand lopsided floorboards, another step closer to Charlie. “I’m willing to get eaten by the giant rats for you.”

Charlie bit back a premature grin. “Is that a yes?”

Knox stopped mere inches away from Charlie. His eyes darted up to the ceiling, to a particularly egregious water stain overhead. “The drinks aren’t going to be here, right?”

“Obviously, Knoxious.” It was Charlie’s turn to take a step forward and he already knew he would never forget the sound of Knox’s breath hitching.

“I think I can make it, then,” Knox said softly.

When they told the story at the bar later, Knox exaggerated the size of the rats and Charlie embellished Knox’s swooning, but Charlie liked keeping the real, unpolished memory for himself. The way Knox’s hand twisted in his hair, his hands on Knox’s chest, their lips slotting together perfectly, the violent clanging of pipes above them providing a terrible score.

And as Charlie watched Knox describe the rundown building in brutal detail, his hands flailing and their friends taking it all in with mirrored looks of disbelief, Charlie laughed to himself and thought - he proved me wrong. He proved Charlie wrong awhile ago.

Charlie just wouldn’t give Knox the satisfaction of knowing that just yet.

…

The morning of New Years’ Eve, a sign went up in the window of the bar. It was nothing spectacular - Pitts refused any attempts by Ginny and Neil to adorn it with any kind of sparkle or leftover tinsel - just big block letters advertising a very special announcement.

COMING SOON: SISTER LOCATION.

“Ominous,” Charlie said with a low whistle.

Neil swung an arm around Charlie’s shoulders, jostling him slightly. “I’m proud of you.”

“I’m proud of both of us,” Charlie said, shooting Neil a sideways sly smile. “We’re both finally getting laid.”

The last bar brawl of the year happened on the sidewalk outside and it was about half in good fun.

…

The countdown to midnight was on and not a single person seemed to care.

Meeks was fiddling with the jukebox, trying to see if he could get ‘We Didn’t Start the Fire’ playing in a constant, irreversible loop. Cameron was in deep conversation with a blitzed man in a fully undone suit about how it was his idea to set up a sister location for the bar. Gloria had her hands full with double trays filled to the brim with drinks and neon jello shots in honor of the holiday.

At a table by the window, a table they used to silently reserve for Mr. Lonely Heart, Knox was laughing at something Charlie was whispering in his ear, one hand twined in Charlie’s hair.

Behind the bar, Neil watched Todd make a perfect Manhattan, a glowing smile twinkling on his face. When the drink got handed off, Neil pulled Todd in and kissed him quick as the sound of a hundred hearts breaking echoed through the bar.

Her boys were right where they were supposed to be.

“ _Carpe diem_ ,” Ginny muttered to herself as she leaned up against the doorway of Pitts’ office.

“What was that?” Pitts asked, settling by her side, looking out at his bar with the same amount of pride she felt.

Ginny looked up at him and seized the day. “Are you kissing anyone at midnight?”

…

It was an unsolvable mystery, how a bunch of kids came to run not one, but two whole bars. Maybe somebody would write a story about it someday.

**Author's Note:**

> 1) This all came about when I thought about how funny it would be if Knox just kept getting stood up on dates as our boys watched on. That didn't really end up being the plot of this fic, but must fic have plot? Is it not enough to see idiots fall in love?
> 
> 2) But in all honesty, I don't know about this one. It's out in the world now though! I hope you're all staying safe, staying social distancing, and staying reading AO3.


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